Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Seventeenth Leaf in the series "Leaves on the World Tree: Acholi Yaa"

So my world tree series did not, in fact, get to have 30 paintings in 30 days to get it started, BUT, the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge DID get it started. And that's really the point of the challenge-- to have fun, to experiment, and to get back to painting. As long as I -keep- painting, then I'm going to chalk it up to win.

I will provide a little back story on the delay though-- the important part of which was that as I prepared for the original 17th piece, my notes didn't give me quite enough information to get started, so I went back to my original sources and discovered that there were actually even more major ethnic groups than my original research provided. In fact, I discovered that if I was working my way alphabetically through them, I had already missed -8-. So I updated my list and dove into the research for the skipped groups.

The Yaa is more commonly known in the west as the Shea Nut Tree-- for Shea Butter (moo yaa in Acholi), though it has several names.

It originates in Africa and can take up to 50 years to mature and begin producing nuts. There are several trees that could have been chosen from the endemic preserves around the source of the Blue Nile, and the Shea could (and may still) be used as a recognizable tree for several locations, but I have chosen it as the seventeenth leaf in my world tree series for the Acholi Yaa.

Like my previous pieces, the rainbow background serves as a bridge to the world tree, and there are seven nuts in the leaves representing spiritual awakening and the collective consciousness, as well as the current seven districts of Acoli.